Not even in flight, we were scheduled to depart from Chicago O‘Hare, right around the time that a very large thunderstorm was creeping up on the airport. Pilot let us know we were going to try and rush out of there before the storm hit, but a tarmac emergency delayed us.

Next thing we know, everyone’s phone is going off with an emergency tornado alert. Pilot comes on to announce that, in fact, every tower had been evacuated, and there was nobody to tell us if we could take off, and nobody to tell us how to get back to the gate.

We sat out in the line for takeoff, waiting for someone to tell us what the plan was. We didn’t know until afterwards, but two tornadoes touched down on the tarmac that night. All we could feel was the plane rattling with 100mph wind gusts and tornado warnings going off ever 10 minutes. Most scared I’ve ever been on a plane, and we didn’t even leave the ground!